You cannot be serious!

Sorry! Can’t do it! I just can’t take Cat Boyd seriously as a spokesperson for the Yes movement. Or even as a committed advocate for independence. Not even as a genuine political progressive. Whatever credibility she may have had was squandered when she proudly boasted of voting for British Labour in Scotland (BLiS). An act of self-indulgent silliness only aggravated by her attempt to rationalise the folly on the grounds that, by voting for the bitter Blairites of BLiS, she was somehow supporting Jeremy Corbyn.

Yes! THAT Jeremy Corbyn! The Trident-hugging British Labour leader who is competing with the Tory half of the British establishment to see which can be the most confused and cloddish in its approach to Brexit. The Jeremy Corbyn whose anti-democratic British nationalist zealotry is barely distinguishable from that of Colonel Ruth Davidson, Queen of the Britnats.

Had Boyd hesitantly, reluctantly admitted using her vote to validate some of the very worst that the British state has to offer, it might have been possible to get past the blatant, oxymoronic contradiction that struggles to avoid being labelled a betrayal. But no! She proudly boasts of it! Which makes it extremely difficult to listen to her lecturing those of us who have remained resolutely true to the cause about how independence might best be achieved.

Not that Boyd will see the problem. To her, it’s those who so much as comment on her behaviour who are the problem. She is a member of that clique that I refer to as the ‘righteous radicals’. A left wing elite that presumes to speak for the entire Yes movement. As GA Ponsoby says on Indyref2,

The elites have created their own hierarchy, and they sit at the top. The rest of us are too vulgar to be heard. They despise Stuart Campbell not because he runs the most popular blog, but because he runs the most popular blog and isn’t one of them.”

Most of us aren’t “one of them”. By far the largest part of the Yes movement is not included in this leftist elite whose support for independence is strictly conditional on it being tied to their own narrow political agenda.

By definition, such elites are exclusive. Which would be fine by those of us who find elitism repellent, but for the fact that this particular elite claims sole ownership of a movement hitherto defined by its breadth, diversity and inclusiveness. Anyone who does not subscribe to their vision of what an independent Scotland should look like is condemned as a heretic. Anyone who criticises a member of the priesthood is accused of ‘abuse’. Anyone who questions their right to represent the cause and manage the project is pilloried for bringing the independence movement into disrepute.

So, I can’t take Cat Boyd seriously. I won’t take her seriously. I won’t feed her ego or legitimise the elitism that she represents. I have no great problem with much of the left’s thinking about the kind of society that might be built in Scotland once we bring our government home. There are numerous figures on the left who are doing valuable work and contributing innovative ideas about what being independent could mean. But I suspect I speak for many in the Yes movement when I say that our primary focus at this time must be on the matter of becoming independent. And, on this, the righteous radicals have nothing whatever to offer.

I don’t take Cat Boyd seriously because, while I have my own views on how we should take the independence project forward which are open to dispute, I know as a matter of absolute certainty that what will kill that project stone dead is the corrosive elitism and divisive factionalism that she and her ilk bring to the Yes movement.

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The broad definition of ‘ilk’ in the context of this article I would take to mean ‘people like Cat Boyd’. Too vague to be of any use, were it not for your Paragraph 4 definition of ‘people like Cat Boyd’ as a ‘clique’ that *you* refer to as ‘righteous radicals’. You took some individuals, defined them as a distinct group, gave them a pejorative name, criticised their approach, and then accused them of ‘divisive factionalism’, hence my comment about irony.

An implication from what GAP said yesterday about WOS v Dugdale is that the vast majority of Yessers probably don’t take much interest in the more extreme supporters of independence – right or left.

WOS is very popular because it clearly and confidently refutes britnat lies and propaganda. WOS gives the vast majority of Yessers what they want: ammunition to fight the enemies of independence. It will continue to be popular and rightly so.

And she admitted on Question time that she didn’t even bother to vote in the EU Ref (there are such things as postal votes and proxy votes if you are away!) Conveniently sitting on the fence on Brexit methinks..

To answer your question, because she is good-looking, very articulate, and with her radical-left views probably deters anyone who is politically moderate or right-of-centre from ever voting “yes”, for fear of iScotland becoming the new Venezuela. (You know, the very people whom we need to convince to get over the 50% hurdle.)

To be honest I’ve never had much time for Cat Boyd everything about her strikes me as an attention seeker and this vote for Labour only confirms it, lets face it if she come out and announced she voted SNP nobody would bat an eyelid, I also think her non vote in the EU ref was attention seeking and if I’m not mistaken it got her a seat on the Question Time panel.

If there is to be a schism in the Indy movement so be it but lets make sure it’s people like yourself, Stuart Campbell & Paul Kavannah etc that come out on top and speak for the Indy movement and let the Cat Boyds & Angela Haggertys of this world find another platform to spout their puerile self indulgent all about me garbage from .

Couldn’t see & still don’t see what others do in Cat Boyd.
As Graeme above points out, she always appeared as a attention seeker. I myself always felt, and it would seem others also, that she more likely a soft Indy voter & more inclined to vote Labour when an acceptable alternative as leader was available.
So no great surprise she admitted she voted Corbyn, or as others myself included see it SLAB.
My real turn off from her was an article she wrote about BBC bias, very good one if i recall. Only to spoil it by proceeding to appear on BBC & say zilch on the matter.
No point in criticising someone, then when confronted with them saying nothing.
Got her the exposure she obviously craved i suppose.
And that is the problem with those on the left who want to be seen as leaders. They use the media that they criticise for their own self publicity rather than attack the problem of media bias in this country.
Others like Boyd will say the left is being silenced, but their not. They have a platform like others do, just use it better and to more effect.

This is the same Cat Boyd that was standing for Holyrood in 2016 wrote on the National the day before the election on who the next Celtic Boss should be, instead of on her election campaign … i lost all respect for her as any kind of serious politician

I never understood Boyd’s popularity, I always found her witterings to be vacuous, lacking any depth or insight, basically empty soundbites. In fact her unintelligent ramblings were one of the factors in my giving up on the National. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that she is now showing her true colours, as an attention-seeking non-YESSER, who will turn any way the wind blows if there is something in it for her. A female farage.

Aye attention thats it , me me me , voting Labour will never ever get you independence Miss Boyd haven’t you got that yet ? .Never Ever . Corbyn is not the Messiah hes a very naughty boy ,
The last bit was a tongue in cheek in case anyone takes it the wrong way ..

The last few lines of a letter I have published in today’s National sums it up

“Any silly notion that Scotland’s priorities will figure largely in London’s priorities under any London government is political naivety at its most dangerous.
Corbyn is being used in Scotland to damage the SNP and damage the independence cause.
That is all and the naïve who imagine they can vote for Labour in Scotland and still claim to support independence need to be shown the bigger picture as the reality of what they are doing has obviously escaped them.
Or perhaps they just joined the independence bandwagon to get onto the platform when that was the best place to be.”

She’s made herself a pariah for the majority of the indy movement. Voting for BLIS ( as she’s perfectly entitled to do) makes her an enemy of indy AFAIC. Her non vote in the EU ref, either didn’t understand the relevance of the vote , or couldn’t be arsed, is fair enough. But makes any opinion she has on it totally irrelevant. The fact that shes making a point publicising these facts make her an attention seeking tit. She can now only cause damage to independence. These arsewipes from common space/ bella are too interested in their own self agrandisement to be of any use to the indy movement.

Carolyn Leckie, Cat Boyd and now Ross Greer, three posts in a row from Mr Bell criticising -to put it mildly- fellow Nationalists. Proof, not that any is needed, that the support for SNP is now turning in on itself, and fragmenting.